The Queen Underneath

by Stacey Filak

  A low grumble rolled over the crowd.

  Gemma held her hand up for silence. “The slate is wiped clean for all those but the ringleader.” She paused, and Tollan wondered how he would forgive those around him if they had betrayed him and mutinied against him. He was surprised to see that Gemma was more forgiving than he would be.

  “But, unfortunately, mutiny and revolt are not his worst crimes.” Gemma gestured at the Belly Up. “Within our own walls, Riquin Hawkbeard raped, tortured and imprisoned two of our own.”

  A hiss drew out of the crowd. In Above, mutiny and treason were punishable by death, but rape and torture were often overlooked. Tollan didn’t know if he would ever understand Under, but he realized that he felt safer here than he ever had in the palace, surrounded by guards and his father.

  “We have little in Under,” Gemma said. “We have each other, our pride, our sharp blades and sharper tongues. And we have a code. When we kill, we kill quickly. We do not bask in another’s pain, and we do not cause it unnecessarily. That is the monstrous horseshit that festers in Above. We are liars and thieves and whores and killers, but we are not evil!” Her eyes flashed in the torchlight.

  The crown erupted in cheers. Tollan found himself cheering, too.

  Gemma raised her hand to quiet them. “I have a bit of a conundrum, my friends. A part of me wants to make Riquin’s screams last, but the goddess tells us to be merciful. So, while I could gut him—spill his innards here on the docks for the gulls to feast on—I don’t want our seabirds poisoned with his bile. I could strap him to an iron weight and drop him below the waves, but then I risk polluting the entire Hadriak.”

  A few cheers were raised and quickly quashed, as she went on.

  “What I really itch to do is hand over some blades to our brother and sister in there and let them cut him until he isn’t capable of raping anyone ever again.”

  The paramours shouted with a single voice.

  “But we are of Under, and we are better than that.”

  Next to Tollan, Isbit stepped forward. “Excuse me, Regency,” she said. “I believe I have a solution.”

  Gemma nodded for Isbit to continue.

  “You all know my story. I was not born in Under. I became one of you because I fell in love with Jamis. But now that he’s gone, now that Abram is gone, my place is in the palace. I’ve decided to pass on the Heart’s Desire to my son, if he’ll have it.” She looked at Tollan, and he found himself nodding. He was stunned by her offer, but he realized immediately how right it felt. The only place he’d every truly been happy was at sea. He was nodding and smiling before he’d even collected his thoughts.

  His mother smiled back, flashing a golden tooth that hadn’t been there when he was a boy. Then she turned back to Gemma. “I believe I have a solution to your”—she waved her hand at Riquin, disgust clear—“little rapist problem. I am of Above, and you’re right. We are evil, sadistic pricks. I have no problem doing what should be done to this animal.”

  Gemma nodded. “It is done then. Let us leave this monster to her work.”

  The crowds cleared out. Tollan felt sick as he watched his mother take the knife from Gemma, but then he spotted Elam by the tavern stairs. Tollan ran to him, covering his ears. But the screaming had already begun.

  Gemma’s legs trembled as the crowd followed her instructions, and she made her way back inside the Belly Up.

  “What I did out there,” she said, resting her head in her hands upon the sticky table, “was wrong.” She could still hear Riquin’s screams, and her stomach twisted.

  Devery reached out to put a hand on her arm but then didn’t, his hand hanging in midair and then settling again on the table. Elam clicked his tongue as if he were going to say something, but then he stopped himself, too. Tollan and Wince stared off blankly, as if at any moment, they would ask how they had gotten here.

  She told herself it had been necessary, that unless she wanted a civil war, she had to excise Riquin’s poison, but his screams only pierced that argument full of holes. “Goddess above,” she growled. “That woman is merciless.”

  Tollan chuckled, and Gemma turned her attention to him. “I’m sorry,” she said, meeting his gaze. “She’s your mother …”

  He shook his head. “No apology needed. My entire life I loathed my father and thought my mother was a being of mercy and warmth. But it strikes me tonight that at least I can say I actually knew my father. That woman”—he gestured toward the door—“is a complete stranger to me.”

  Wince looked as if he wanted to comfort his friend but didn’t know how. So it was Elam who reached out and took Tollan’s hand. His thumb caressed the former king’s hand gently, and Gemma caught herself staring at the bare honesty of the moment. It was unlike Elam to be so open. A gurgling scream found its way in through the closed door.

  “Maybe that’s the last,” Devery said, just as another, higher-pitched keen began anew.

  “Prick this,” Gemma said, pushing away from the table and getting to her feet. “It’s over.” She stormed out into the night.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DOCKSIDE

  When Gemma reached Isbit, she couldn’t believe that Riquin was still alive. “Enough!” she growled, snatching the knife from Isbit’s hand.

  The Queen of Above turned her gaze upon her and said, “Come to finish the deed?”

  Gemma was surprised to see that Isbit’s eyes were wet with tears.

  Gemma placed the blade to what was left of Riquin’s throat. “I can’t say you deserved this, you prick, but neither did Jost and Becka.” He stared at her with blank eyes, and she drew the blade across his throat.

  “Is this not what you wanted?” Isbit asked softly.

  Gemma felt ill. Her legs and arms trembled. She turned and slid down to sit on the dock, putting the pulp and bone that had once been Riquin Hawkbeard behind her.

  Isbit sat down beside her.

  “How can you …” Gemma wasn’t sure how to ask the woman how she could live with herself.

  Isbit sighed and wiped her bloodied hands on her breeches. She was silent for a long moment before she said, “For much of my life, I was someone’s property. Have you ever known that feeling? To know that you have no value?”

  Gemma shook her head, which was beginning to throb.

  Isbit went on. “No, I suppose you haven’t. I look at you, and I see what I might have been. If you walk through the halls of the noble houses, you would never think that a woman might choose a low birth. It makes no sense. But I can tell you from experience that I would have done so in a heartbeat had I known what it was like in Under.”

  She sighed. “In Above, daughters are sold to the highest bidder. Their own choices and desires mean nothing. I had no say in whether or not I married the king. My friends had no choices. We were first our father’s property, and then our husband’s. If we did not please our husband, we could be beaten lawfully. If we did not satisfy our husband, he could take as many mistresses as he liked. If we dared to question our husband, we could be declared a whore, humiliated, used and broken until we learned our place. Every girl’s mother warned her. We were raised on horror stories. Every girl grew up knowing how to lay still and take it.”

  Bile rose in Gemma’s throat.

  After a moment, Isbit continued. “When Jamis washed up on Whitebeach, he was terribly ill and injured, yet he spoke to me kindly. It wasn’t respect for my station or fear that he would break some silly rule. It was actual kindness. I ran headlong into him, and in our years together, he never once treated me as his possession. In Above, that is rarer than you can imagine.

  “Had I known that the world could be other than it was, I’d have left before my father signed the nuptial agreement with Abram. I’d have come to Melnora and offered myself as a maid or a thief or a whore. I’d have done so willingly and with a smile on my face.

  “Because, as I discovered much too late, I was always a whore. I let Abram prick me and get me with child becau
se I was paid to do so with plush carpets and silver platters, with a torn slit and bruises and a hatred of myself that was only eclipsed by my loathing of him.”

  Gemma couldn’t help but be moved by Isbit’s story, and she reached out and silently took the other woman’s bloodstained hand. After several long moments, the queen went on.

  “Life Above doesn’t have to be rotten. But if anyone is going to change it, it must be me. I’m the only one who knows how different things can be. And if that means cutting every prickling rapist and sadist I come across, I will gladly do so, until the women of Above walk with their heads held as high as the women of Under. Until every person in Yigris is free.”

  Gemma smiled, ignoring the cramp that was building in her belly. “It’s funny you should bring that up, Your Grace,” she said. “Because I need to talk to you about some mage women up on the hill.”

  In Gemma’s mind, two things were clear. First, the mage women in the palace must be released and allowed to go home to Vaga. Second, Brinna could not continue her vendetta against the Daghan family. Isbit’s son (or sons, if by some miracle Iven still lived) must be given his freedom. And Gemma hoped, for Devery’s sake, that his family would somehow be convinced to see reason, but she feared that Brinna’s taste for vengeance had poisoned her and Elsha both beyond the point of return.

  Isbit stared at the sky, her fingers tracing the wooden talisman she wore on a leather cord around her neck. “I always hated the way the mages were kept,” she finally said. “I wasn’t allowed much contact with them. I was told they were too dangerous, and I was too weak to control them.” She sighed. “You must think that I’m a milquetoast half-wit.”

  Gemma laughed. “I think a lot of things about you, Your Grace, but milquetoast is not among them.”

  “Well, my dear, I’m afraid you’re wrong. I was as weak as a person can be for much of my life. I saw how those women were treated but never said a word. In my mind, I thought there was nothing that could be done, and in my heart, I thought I was as much a prisoner as they were. Brinna saw what I could not—that there is always something that can be done. But I can’t let her have my sons. I have done them enough wrong already.”

  “Can I ask you a question, Your Grace?” Gemma said.

  “Only if you call me Isbit,” the queen said. “You and I are going to have a lot of work to do together once this is over. It’d be best if we were friends.”

  Gemma couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder at Riquin’s mangled corpse. “Friends, huh?” she chuckled softly.

  But Isbit just nodded.

  Finally, Gemma continued. “Why didn’t you take your sons with you when you went?” She couldn’t help but think of the baby she’d lost, and she couldn’t imagine giving up a child willingly.

  Isbit’s hard eyes went soft. “Jamis wanted me to. He said that we could raise the boys together, on the boat. But …” Her voice cracked, and she looked away from Gemma. “What I did to Abram—I left him a cuckold. Your King of Above was scared pissless of any confrontation, any unpleasantness, save against those who shared his blood or his bed. Tollan and I always took the brunt of his impotence, and I will never forgive myself for leaving him and Iven there. But the fact of the matter was that if I had taken the boys, it would have meant war. Abram would have wasted every one of Yigris’s resources to retrieve his heirs and put an end to me and Jamis.

  “I was just selfish enough to run, but I wasn’t selfish enough to destroy my city.” She cleared her throat, then continued. “I know you must think me an abomination. What sort of mother leaves her children? But the goddess and I worked out an agreement long ago. She saw me through the worst I could imagine, and now it’s my turn to do what I can to heal this city and my people. When I am rotting in the ground, I’ll pay my debts for what I did to my boys. Until then, I can’t worry about my sins. There’ll be an eternity for that later.”

  Gemma found herself admiring the woman’s clarity. The world was falling apart around them, but Isbit was willing to do what must be done, even at the risk of her own soul.

  “I doubt Tollan will ever speak to me again after tonight.” Isbit glanced behind them at Riquin. “I’ve given him all that I can, though. That ship is …” Her voice cracked, and she began to weep quietly.

  “You haven’t given him everything yet.” Gemma shook her head. “You should tell him what you just told me.”

  Isbit smiled through her tears. “You are young, yet, Regency. Someday you’ll see that words mean only so much. It isn’t what I’ve said or what I haven’t. I left him. No amount of apology will ever be enough, and no reason will ever suffice.”

  Gemma wanted to argue, but a cramp took hold of her that shook her like a dog with a rat in its mouth. The edges of her vision faded to starlight and pain. She reached out to support herself on the queen’s arm, but the ground embraced her instead.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE BELLY UP

  After Gemma had stormed out of the tavern, Tollan sat in silence with Elam, Wince and Devery for several long moments. Finally, Devery said, “Well, this is prickling ridiculous.” He went behind the counter, poured four mugs of thick ale, and carried them, sloshing, back to the table. He set them down and said, “You gentlemen look as if you could use a drink. It’s not every day that you put down a bloody rebellion.”

  Elam and Wince reached for theirs, immediately, but Tollan waited. Something in the man’s words sat sourly in Tollan’s stomach. There wouldn’t have been a rebellion without Devery Nightsbane. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for him and his insane mother and sister, who was sitting in the palace doing goddess knows what to his brother. “It isn’t poisoned, is it?”

  Wince nearly dropped his cup, coughing ale out onto the table. “Balls,” he stammered.

  One side of Devery’s mouth turned up in a wicked smile. “I’ve never poisoned anyone in my life, Tollan. I doubt I’d start now when I could have skewered you at any point while we sat here.”

  “This is your fault,” Tollan growled, still staring Devery down. “All of this”—he waved his arms around—“is your fault.”

  Wince’s hand slipped to the hilt of his sword.

  “It’s been a long night,” Elam said gently. “Let’s not say things that are—”

  “It’s all right, Elam. He’s right. I’ve known for a long time that my mother’s plan was wrong, but …” He shrugged as if in one motion he could indicate all the complexities between mother and son. And maybe he could.

  Tollan, goddess knew, had his own complications with Isbit. But it made Tollan’s stomach turn that he was even comparing the two of them. What Devery and his family had done was wrong. The pain they’d caused and the damage they’d done to Yigris could not be forgiven. “I should kill you,” Tollan said, without thinking.

  Beside him, Elam gasped. Wince stood up, shoving his chair back from the table. Devery never moved.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Elam said.

  Devery kept smiling, his gaze fixed on Tollan. “Sit back down, Master Quintella,” he said softly. “No one is going to do any more killing tonight.”

  Tollan felt rage roll through him, and his hands began to tremble. How dare this Vagan shit tell him what he could and couldn’t do. He slammed his hands down on the tabletop, pushing himself up and sloshing ale over the tops of the mugs. “Prick you, Nightsbane. I’ll decide if someone’s going to die.”

  Elam was trying to grab Tollan, Wince’s face had taken on the gray pallor of a dead gull, but still, Devery didn’t move. Tollan drew his sword.

  “Back up, Elam. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Tollan, please,” Elam begged. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  There was an edge of emotion in his voice that Tollan had never heard before. It might have been panic.

  Every bit of confusion and pain that Tollan had suffered in the last week was boiling within him: his father and mother; his brother, Iven
; the fledgling flirtation with Elam; the revelation about the mage women; the fact that his city was still asleep, trapped within burning brambles and that it was no longer his city. He didn’t even know who he was anymore, but he knew where the blame lay. He didn’t give two pricks right now that he had never wanted the throne to begin with. Right now, he wanted to hurt someone, and the only person he could think to hurt was sitting right in front of him.

  Suddenly, like having a bucket of icy water poured over him, he realized why Wince and Elam were so upset. He’d just called out the most capable murderer in the city. He wasn’t a poor swordsman, but he wasn’t a great one, either. He felt color rise to his cheeks.

  “That’s a lamb,” Devery said, and gestured toward Tollan’s chair. “Have a seat, have a drink and let’s all sit and pretend we’re friends so when Gemma comes back, we don’t have to explain our near miss with bloody death, shall we?”

  Tollan sat. He took a sip of his ale. Devery took a long pull from his own mug, then said, “Let me make something perfectly clear, sir. You and I can have our differences. You can think me an evil prick, if you like. I don’t care. What I care about, right now, is that the woman I love has walked through the Void today, and if you’re planning on taking the captaincy that your mama offered, then Gemma is your queen. You will sit down now, drink that ale and put on a happy face. Tomorrow, you can air your grievances, and if the queen believes I should die for my crimes, then so be it. She and Aegos are the only authority I recognize. But tonight, you aren’t going to breathe another goddess-damned word about it. Do I make myself clear?”

  Tollan nodded, unable to meet the assassin’s gaze. Elam leaned against the table as if all the rigidity had gone out of his bones. Wince slipped into his chair and picked up his own mug, draining it before he set it down once more.